So...I did my first House Live gig in a long time. In case you, loyal reader, don't remember, that's where there's a DJ playing "house" music, and a percussionist and yours truly play over the top of it. We used to do a lot of this variety of gigs, and then the popularity faded and I got busy with other stuff. It's a nice paycheck, but musically, it's bullshit. I spend my time practicing over deep four on the floor beats, and watching the clock.
Wayne Viar was the percussionist on this gig (equally bored with the concept). I worked on playing rhythm changes on alto, jazz articulation (lightly tonguing the offbeats) on flute, and generally trying to play fast lines on both instruments. I also photobombed a couple of shots, but if you're going to pose in front of the band like you're at the zoo, I'm gonna be the animal.
Later in the evening, I think I recognized a local musician (well...jazz vocalist), and it made me regret everything I'd played for the previous ninety minutes. I tried to a few Charlie Parker tunes and stay in the same key as the DJ.
The best part of the night was watching the aerialists dangle high above the marble floor. I bet the bartenders were really excited about the possibility of being killed by a falling body. How do they do that?
How has this not been Porsche's entire advertising campaign for the last ten years? I can't believe that this nugget of 80s nostalgia hasn't been mined.
David Ellington and I brought our duo to the Porsche headquarters down by the airport. It's a beautiful place; it looks (not surprisingly) like a modern European office building dropped on the southside of Atlanta. We played a dinner/reception for a bunch of high end customers. They talked a lot. They listened not at all. We were strictly background noise. Easy gig, though. Dave and I were both pretty fried from stuff earlier in the day--he from recording and me from a rehearsal.
I took a night off from Yacht Rock Saturday night to play at the Shaky Knees Festival, performing in a local horn section with Rob Opitz (trumpet) and Richard Sherrington (trombone) backing Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. Interesting gig!
For whatever reason, I was curious as to how different things would be from the gigs that I do. Lots of familiarity--the same kinds of gear, microphones, amps, power strips, and cables across the stage. I'm not sure why I thought there would be anything different--no bluetooth guitars or anything. Just like all of my gigs, it's just regular gear on a stage that we play.
What was different was the crew--a handful of techs for the musicians who set up and tuned all the gear, plus sound guys (out front and monitors), tour manager, and probably a personal assistant in there. All British guys, and each had a different British accent. We had Richard (our Brit) translate.
The most difficult part of this evening's adventure was parking. Like many other events around Atlanta, the police are never on the same page with the festival. The tour manager emailed me a map, so I thought we were in good shape. Ha! Not so fast.
I carpooled down there with Rob, and on the map it looked like there was parking on Pine Street right next to our stage. Perfect! We drove to Parkway Drive and Pine, but there were barricades. We pulled in to ask a cop on the next available road, and he had no idea how we could get to the parking; in fact, he had no idea that parking was available. He maybe thought we could ask the police at Pine Street, so Rob went around the block and I went to investigate on foot.
At Pine, the police said no way, and beyond the barricades there were gates--this definitely wasn't the place. One officer suggested we go around to North Ave to "where there are cones and barricades--that's where the tour buses went in." Rob texted that he was coming around to get me. A black Honda turned in front of me and pulled over to the curb and opened the door to get in, only to scare the living hell out of some random guy who was NOT picking me up, but somebody else! Oops.
So...back in Rob's car. We went around to North Ave to the cones and barricades. I jumped out to ask the cop, and of course he had no idea what we were talking about. He suggested we go to Pine Street because we we definitely weren't entering at his street. In lieu of that, he thought there might be an entrance further down North Ave.
We found a side street where the production people were, so we pulled in there. This must be the place! The runner at the street even let us in, so we were on the right track. The second guy we encountered said no, though, and got a girl to come from the production office. She said no, you cannot park here, but you should go around to Pine Street and they'll let you in. Uhh...no. Rob and I vetoed that. She then produced a sheet with directions. Magic! Using a diagonal street (Felton Drive), we were able to bypass the Pine Street cops and reach parking. Hooray! We parked directly behind the stage.
After a quick rehearsal, we had a few minutes to kill. We met Noel Gallagher (who was actually very polite to us, in spite of his reputation). We set up our station at stage right, laughing that they'd set out three of those $15 wire music stands for us! We used our iPads for charts instead. The monitor guy passed out in ear monitors and packs for us, telling us that we'd begin with the previous horn section's mixes. Mine was crazy loud saxophone, audible horns, and some drums. I asked the guy to give me a blend of everybody with the sax just a little louder, but it never happened, so I played with only one ear in. The stage sound was pretty good, anyway. With no soundcheck, that worked just fine.
The gig was a piece of cake. I'd spent a good bit of time practicing the charts, and I think the horn section was pretty flawless. We only played on five songs, so the rest of the time we were offstage. The charts were easy, though I had a couple that took a little bit of interpretation. Both were handwritten charts that had been scanned and put on an iPad, and then somebody had taken a screen shot and sent that! One of those had notes written in, and a full chordal voicing for each note. I checked the trombone part, and he had the same sounding pitch as the trumpet. So...I play the fifth? They're power chords with me in the middle?
It turned out to be the same chart that the trumpet had, but all the videos I'd watched had bari sax. Eventually I figured out that those notes were the bari notes (if you transpose the trumpet chart--Bb on trumpet is concert Ab, which F on bari sax). Therefore, we are not playing power chords, we're in octaves. Get it?
I was surprised that all of the charts weren't immaculate, considering that there would be almost no chance to try anything before going on stage. Anyway...no big deal. Working with the charts and comparing the studio recording and YouTube clips from earlier in the year, I was able to figure it all out. We only played on five songs; the rest of the time, we had prime seats to watch the show!
Seventy-five minutes after we first walked on stage, it was over. As Noel passed us leaving the stage, he stopped to shake each of our hands and thank us for playing. Pretty cool.
Eight minutes after that, Rob and I were driving away. Nice.
Videos:
This one opens with a obnoxious tenor solo:
This one has a couple of bari solos:
An Oasis song with lots of horns:
To top it all off, I got a mention from the Atlanta Journal Constitution! You can see the entire thing here: http://music.blog.ajc.com/2015/05/10/shaky-knees-music-festival-2015-day-2-wilco-noel-gallagher-social-distortion/
The Yacht Rock van left Jacksonville pretty early on Friday morning--as uncomfortable as it was (7:30 AM), it was good because I had to be home and then get out to Decatur for a duo gig with David Ellington.
We tried another new odd meter tune on Ellington's suggestion, called And Then Some. Five I can kind of feel; this one was in seven, and I don't know what to do with it. Right now I'm just guessing where the downbeats are.
Other than that, it was a good gig! Slow in the restaurant, but we (as always) had a good time. Have a listen.
I've got a little backlog of blogging, so I'll be catching up in pieces...
Thursday: Yacht Rock has played a party connected to the PGA tournament in Jacksonville the previous two years. We weren't available for this year's party, so we were hired for an event there earlier in the weekend. Same ride, same tent, same people.
Unfortunately, Jacksonville is kind of far away, and we had to load in pretty early in the afternoon, so we left Atlanta at 7 AM. Boo. Somewhere in south Georgia, our van began to vibrate more than usual and we were forced to purchase two new tires. I woke up in the back seat to this.
Behind these tires I set free my morning coffee.
The tire stop cut into our lunch break, so we ate at Wendy's. No surprise that I ordered what I always order.
We showed up around a half hour late for load in, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Since the golf tournament was in progress, we really couldn't do any kind of soundcheck anyway. It just left us with a lot of down time.
One of the more exciting events of the afternoon was when the stand of bamboo in the corner behind my gear blew over in the breeze and landed on my stuff. Thankfully nothing was damaged. Kip forbid the lady from setting it back up. Only Bencuya's bamboo remained.
We also had an interview with a lady from the PGA. She was pretty. It made me goofy. Here's a picture of me trying not to say anything (else) stupid.
Other than that, it was a pretty average gig. One ninety minute set with Matt Lipkins (of Shadowboxes fame) subbing for Nick. Afterwards we all stood around while all of the female audience had their pictures taken with Pete.
David Ellington and I hadn't done a gig in a month. I was a little worried--my saxophone playing as of late has been pretty abysmal, and there would be nowhere to hide on a duo gig. What if I provided two hours of uncoordinated eighth notes, a dozen tunes of bumbling bullshit? It seemed like a real possibility.
Fortunately, none of that came true. I asked Ellington about it after the gig, and he claimed it was his own superb performance that brought my own level up! Maybe so...but I seriously do wonder why everything flowed so easily on this gig, but not on others, or not at home. This turned out to be some of my best playing of the year. I could've played another set and not felt like I was playing in circles.
Afterwards, we had brunch. Great gig! We're back Friday night, 7-9 PM.
Yacht Rock played our first Athens gig in several months last Friday. It's good to be back! As best as I can tell, our previous evening here was at the end of August 2014. We were supposed to play more recently, but we were bumped from the calendar in favor of the Alabama Shakes.
The Georgia Theatre is a pretty awesome place to play. Looks good, sounds good. We had Kip on front of house and Zach on monitors for this one.
Mark Cobb got this slick new drum head. Way cool.
We ended up skipping Baker Street in the first set and My Life in the second set. I was kind of bummed about both; the time when I really enjoy Baker Street is at the big theater shows, and My Life is fun to play any time.
It appears that Let's Dance is the only keeper from this year's Reagan Rock prom stuff.
Any Way You Want It has been a nice addition, and Nick really nails the vocal every time.
Another slow week here on the blog, but I did want to post a recording of Maxwell's Silver Hammer from last weekend's glorious Please Pleaserock Me/Yacht Rock Revue performance of the Beatles' Abbey Road. This arrangement features Richard Sherrington (trombone), Rob Opitz (trumpet), Greg Lee (alto sax) and me (tenor sax).
I had a fantastic time playing with the Drive By Big Band yesterday! I was mildly terrified when I got the call; I hadn't played in a big band since the late 90s, and I hadn't played lead alto since high school. I really didn't know what to expect, and my most recent gig where I had to sightread everything (Jorge Alvarez) was a disaster. What if I failed miserably song after song in front of fifteen of my peers?
Fortunately, none of that happened. The charts were cool (and readable), everybody in the band was friendly, and it turned out to be a ton of fun and a great hang. I can't wait to do it again!
The day after our hugely awesome gig at the Variety Playhouse, Yacht Rock was back at it again, this time on a big private party in Johns Creek. This, I believe, is our fourth year playing this party, and it's always pretty easy--two sets for an enthusiastic (and very good looking) audience on indoor tennis courts.
Someone in our band may have damaged the building's plumbing.
We're at the Georgia Theatre in Athens this Friday (May 1!). More info here: http://www.georgiatheatre.com/calendar1.html
Wow! GREAT gig last night at Variety Playhouse--Yacht Rock's alter ego Please Pleaserock Me play all of the Beatles' album Abbey Road, plus a second set of more Beatles stuff. For me, that was twenty songs with horn arrangements (most of which were already written, but I had to figure out how to incorporate another voice--trombone--into them without disturbing the trumpet or alto sax parts). We had Rob Opitz on trumpet and Richard Sherrington on trombone. It was a pretty badass sounding section!
Our Beatles shows are always a music store's worth of gear, and this one proved to be no exception. I brought:
1. Keyboard (for strings)
2. Bari sax
3. Tenor Sax
4. Flute
5. Piccolo
6. Clarinet
7. Hand percussion
This was also our first time using iPads for charts on the Please Pleaserock Me show. More success!
The only non-success for the evening was my tenor reed, which began soundcheck in mid-gig form, and was soft and blah by the time I needed to really lean on it for solos. Oops. There will be no altissimo this evening. Terribly sorry.
Our next scheduled performance will be at Turner Field on August 28, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four's performance at Fulton County Stadium.
